Pennsylvania Police Chief Suspended After Facebook Photo

As a society, we have become used to difficult, inappropriate, and embarrassing pictures being uploaded to Facebook.

No, it hasn’t yet stopped us from marveling, musing, and laughing at their content.

But we’ve become more understanding about humans’ urges to display themselves being greater than their capacity to think through the consequences of such a display.

Still, we should reserve our judgment about an image posted to Facebook that featured Tom Keller, the police chief of Confluence, Penn.

It is impossible to know precisely what confluence of events led to this picture appearing on his Facebook page.

What’s clear is that the picture showed Keller — who has a very fetching bicep tattoo — posing with a lady who has a bare midriff and a belly button ring.

Oh and a gun in one hand and another tucked into her jeans.

What is also clear, as CBS Pittsburgh reports, is that Keller has been placed on unpaid administrative leave.

Although some locals seem disturbed by the image, the mayor of Confluence attempted to soothe worried brows.

He told CBS Pittsburgh: “In the winter, people get a little, what you call, cabin fever, you know. And they do goofy things.”

Many might imagine that there was plenty goofy, but nothing illegal, about this picture.

Many might also imagine that Keller hasn’t necessarily helped himself by calling CBS Pittsburgh and claiming that he had “filed a complaint with state police this morning, that someone had hacked his Facebook page that was supposed to be private.”

It’s not that this might not be true. It’s just that the excuse has itself been so often discredited, ever since Congressman Anthony Weiner tried it after his own social-networking faux pas.

It may well be that, as with so many who have gone (down) before him, Keller simply isn’t quite au fait with Facebook’s privacy controls.

Far more fascinating, in any case, would be a revelation of who the gun-toting lady is and where she got her pistols.